Were the Moscow City Council elections a success for the opposition? Several commentators are inclined to say no. The ruling United Russia party still managed to retain its majority in the city council, and this means that it can continue its quiet verification of mayor Sergey Sobyanin’s initiatives. Moreover, with a few exceptions, 20 seats went to representatives of Russia’s “systemic opposition” parties, whom we cannot expect to engage in full-on confrontation with the city executive. And independent candidates - who went out and collected thousands of signatures to register their candidacies - didn’t end up on the ballot papers. It’s clear that we won’t be seeing the Moscow City Council instantly transform into a parliament capable of drilling a hole into the very heart of Russia’s authoritarian regime.
Still, these elections have given us three fundamental political results. First, the election was a victory of grassroots mobilisation over “administrative resources”. Public officials at local prefectures worked hard over the past six months to ensure the victory of pro-regime candidates in the city - taking part in candidates’ courtyard meetings with residents, carrying out new improvements to public buildings against planning permission, forcing street sweepers to hand out leaflets and agitprop, removing election notices from competitors and so on. It was very important to public officials that candidates who had been approved by the Mayor’s Office made it through the elections. But Muscovites came to the ballot box and broke the back-room agreements of the city elite. In conditions of total civic apathy and depoliticisation, this is an invaluable experience.
Moreover, this experience will be a lesson to those who hope to enter the City Council against the electorate’s will, via secret agreements. The Moscow head of the Just Russia party, a systemic opposition force, looks particularly comic in this respect. Alexander Romanovich lost in a constituency that had been prepared especially for him. Not only that, Romanovich was forced to appear in a photograph with Alexander Solovyev, a spoiler candidate from his own party in another constituency - all in service of confirming that Solovyev, who had not engaged in any campaigning whatsoever, actually existed. Indeed, Solovyev-the-spoiler candidate won off the back of a consolidated protest vote, and against the plans of the mayor’s office.
